Hackathon No More

04 June 2012 - Penang, Malaysia

I love hackathon: teaming up with other programmers, trying out new things, building and shipping side-project in the sleepless and caffeine-filled weekend. It's fun and I used to do it once every couple of months.

But approaching my 30s, I have a different thought.

See, here's my typical hackathon now. The first 5-8 hours were good. Excitement set in. I found somebody to team up with, worked on couple of ideas and started building stuff. Hours later, I started to feel tired and I somehow couldn't get this new thing to work. "Not a big deal", I told yourself and drank a Red Bull. I kept munching on the chips on the table and felt I was on the right path to get this to work. I eventually solved it, only after another couple of hours. By that time, fatique set in and I really felt like going home and have a good night sleep. But I didn't want to let your fellow hackers down, and I really needed to ship this. So I drank a couple more Red Bulls and kept going...

The whole weekend turned out to be more painful than fun. I felt horrible (especially if I didn't manage to finish). And what's worse? It took days to recover.

Hence, I would like to make a modest proposal -- a healthier hackathon!

Make the stretch longer. Let's say, three days, from Friday evening to Sunday night, so there would still be time if the participants slept through the night.

Heathy food choices. Instead of snacks and junk food, go with lotsa fruits and vegetables. Replace the Red Bulls and Cokes with Green Tea, or even Matcha.

Have exercise break. Do short runs, or workout sessions.

Wouldn't that be great? Hackathon like this would rejuvenating instead of draining the energy. It would be the perfect weekend retreat.

But, I don't think this would become a reality. Hackathon has been around for ages and it's unlikely to change. Besides, most people think hackers are superhuman and they shouldn't need to sleep.